Caffeinated Chaos

27. Finding Your Purpose in the Chaos of Life & Business with Guest Ali West

• Whitney Aguon • Episode 27

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In this inspiring episode of Caffeinated Chaos, we dive into the journey of finding purpose in the midst of life’s chaos. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a parent, or someone navigating big transitions, discovering what truly drives you can make all the difference. Today’s guest, Ali West, shares their powerful story of self-discovery, how they aligned their business with their deeper mission, and practical steps you can take to uncover your own purpose. With over 15 years of coaching experience, Ali West has helped countless individuals break free from feeling stuck and create a life of fulfillment on their terms. Tune in for a conversation filled with wisdom, encouragement, and actionable insights!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✔ How to identify your deeper purpose beyond work and daily responsibilities
✔ The role of challenges in shaping your mission
✔ Practical ways to align your business and lifestyle with your purpose
✔ Tips for overcoming self-doubt and uncertainty
✔ An introduction to the Pathway to Purpose™ framework and how it helps create life-changing results
✔ How community and support through The Fulfilment Formula Collective™ can accelerate your growth

Connect with Ali:

Let’s Connect!

  • Share your biggest takeaway from this episode on Instagram and tag @caffeinatedchaospodcast!
  • Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help more listeners find this show.

Tune in now and learn how to make self-care a non-negotiable part of your success journey!



Cheers! Thank you for joining us for another episode. Have a chaotic moment, question, or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message or leave a review! If you loved this episode, share it with a friend who thrives in beautiful chaos too.

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Welcome to Caffeinated Chaos, where business deals happen between diaper changes and friendships are fueled by caffeine. I'm Whitney Uggen, your host, and I'm here to talk all things business, parenthood, and of course, keeping up with the BFFs. Whether you're juggling the boardroom, the playroom, or just here for some coffee fueled chaos, we've got you covered. Get ready for real talk, laughs, and a whole lot of heart as we dive into the beautiful mess that is entrepreneurship, parenthood, and everything in between. So let's embrace the chaos together. Caffeinated, of course. Today's guest is on a mission to inspire 1 million people, to inspire 1 million people to break free from feeling stuck, discover their purpose, and create a life of fulfillment on their own terms. With over 15 years of coaching experience, he now specializes in guiding people toward more purpose driven and meaningful lives. Ally West focuses on three key main pillars, health, wealth, and relationship, and has developed a powerful six step framework called Pathway to Purpose, designed to help his clients achieve life-changing results. He also leads the fulfillment formula collective, a group coaching program that brings together like-minded individuals to grow support one another and create lasting transformations. So let's welcome Allie to the podcast. Hi. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. And you are joining us all the way from Colombia. So, thank you. No problem. Yes, currently in Medellín, Colombia. Wow. How's it going over there? Yeah, it's good. Only been here for, in Colombia itself for five weeks and in Medellín for two weeks and enjoying it so far. Yeah, it's, the first few weeks were crazy because my wife and I were here, there, and everywhere. We spent three weeks. It's pretty much traveling all over the country and we covered about 1500 kilometers and did like nine buses and went to five different places. So it was hectic traveling, but it was amazing experiences. So yeah, it's a, it's a cool country for sure. That's amazing. Okay. So you told us a little bit about where you are right now, but tell us who you are. Yeah, for sure. I always find that an interesting question because from my experience of working on myself and developing myself and growing, I always feel as if we are constantly learning about ourselves and who we truly are. If you talk about kind of what I do in my day to day, currently I'm a life coach and I coach and help people to find more fulfillment and more purpose in their lives. And a lot of the clients that I work with, they are ambitious, high performing individuals. A lot of them are business owners and I just help them to kind of navigate their challenges and lead them towards more of a. A fulfilling way of life and I always say are helping them to live their dreams as well and live the dreams that they truly want and desire rather than maybe what society expects of them. So that's what I do in my day to day, but I haven't always done this because prior to leaving the UK, which was October 2022. So I've been a digital nomad for just over two years. Two years now, but before that, I spent 15 years almost in the health and fitness industry. And I did everything in that industry. So I was a personal trainer. I ran my own personal training business. I was an educator for other personal trainers in the UK. And then I also. ran my own gym alongside my wife, Sarah, for five and a half years. So we had a 9, 000 square foot facility that we, that we ran. And there was lots of challenges and ups and downs with that. So yeah, my whole life, my whole adult life pretty much was in the health and fitness industry. And then I kind of got. a little bit disillusioned with that industry. And I got a bit fed up of it and I lost my major, you could say. And then in 2021, I made a bold decision that I wanted to come away from the fitness industry. I wanted to close the gym and live this dream that I've always had. And so did my wife of, of traveling the world and working remotely. So we put the wheels in motion for that. And to be fair, we did it in a very short timeframe. We set ourselves an 18 month target and we actually accomplished. In about 15 months. So we were well ahead of target. And yeah, we're just we're just living our life This is the eighth country that we've lived in and worked in And yeah, we just get to travel the world work remotely and and also do something that i'm hugely passionate about Which is helping other people to grow and develop as well And so that's kind of like my potted history and what i'm all about but we can go In any direction, we can dive into more of that if you want to, I'm, I'm open to share more of my story, it's up to you, it's your, it's your podcast. Oh my god, the conversations I've had with guests, we always, like, listeners, I have all my guests fill out an application, and it's our jumping off point, but we've all, like, all my guests have always taken left turns, and we've ended up in, like, different conversations, so, one, I love your story, and kudos for finishing, like, three months early. Earlier than what you had anticipated. Me and my husband are so notoriously bad at planning stuff. Like we were good at the planning part, but then we feel like every single time we plan something, it completely goes awry, you know? Like, we were planning on moving to LA and now with the fires and the rent increases, that's just. being put on hold. And there are people who are actually in LA right now who need, who need the housing because at this time of this recording, the LA fires is still a really relevant thing right now. So yeah, we've just kind of learned to kind of go with the flow. And now that we have a toddler and a newborn, it's. You kind of have to at this point, but yes, okay. So I am, I have so many questions. Okay. You took the leap from, the health and wellness. And you mentioned a six step framework, which was like the pathway to purpose. So like, could you go into that a little bit? Yeah. Yeah. So that's, I guess you could call it a framework, a system, a methodology for how I help my, my clients. And there's different stages to it, but the key stages are the first part is. What I like to call kind of, dream setting. So that encompasses many different things, but my first starting point with any client is. To get clarity and to get crystal clear clarity, not just for me, but more importantly for them on what it is they truly want. And I don't feel enough people go deep enough on this, so they kind of go surface level and they don't strip away the layers of the onion to find out deep inside, and I always say in the heart. What they want from their life and how they want their life to look, feel, smell, taste, all of that kind of stuff. So the kind of starting point is this set in the dreams, but also kind of getting a gauger of where they're at right now. And in, in that part of dream setting as well, we include stuff like figuring out your personal values, figuring out your vision, figuring out your goals, all that kind of stuff. Then once I've got that, part in place, the kind of second step of it is creating a plan and you spoke about planning there and you and your husband are not necessarily good at it. And I think there's lots of elements to a plan. And I think where a lot of people go wrong is they truly believe that. A plan has to be fixed and almost like military regimented plan. And then when something goes wrong or they have a challenge or a setback, the whole world crumbles or they, or things fall apart. So when I'm creating a plan alongside a client, I like it to firstly be. aligned with who they are and what their values are and what their vision is and what their dreams are. But also it needs to be flexible and it needs to be able to move and mold and be malleable. So as, as they're navigating through that journey towards that dream life or towards that life of purpose and fulfillment. If something does come up, a roadblock, a hiccup, when crazy stuff happens, they can navigate that using a flexible plan. So the plan that I help them to design is not like set in stone. It has to be, has to be flexible. Then once we've got those two components in place, we go into more of like. You could say that the deeper stuff and a lot of my work is around emotional well being. So the third part of kind of my, my six step process is going into emotional well being and emotional, intelligence, you could say. So we go into how, my clients can process their emotions, how they can handle them, how they can deal with them, how they can overcome setbacks and be more resilient. And on those kinds of things. So that's a huge part of that third step is emotional wellbeing, emotional intelligence. And then the fourth part is where we get into like mindset type of stuff. So talking about a growth mindset, talking about how they again, can be more resilient, have more of a positive mindset, more of an optimistic outlook on life rather than a pessimistic one or a negative one. And then the fifth step in my process is kind of. Knitting it all together so that they can have lasting long-term success. So I, I call that part, ongoing progress or ongoing success. So in that stage, we're looking at like how we can tie all of these things together and not just achieve a goal or an aspiration for the next six or 12 months. It's 18 months, it's three years, five years, seven years, 10 years down the line. Mm-hmm And then the final, part of that is, I would just call it again, like it's, it's almost like a maintenance part. So we're like, what are the habits, rituals, routines that they can continue to do day in, day out, that's going to lead them towards a fulfilling purposeful, successful life and all of that good jazz. So that's kind of. There's a lot more detail to it and there's a lot of like moving parts to each of those segments, but they're kind of the framework that I take my clients through so they can see their journey that they're on. And it also helps both of us to make sure that they're getting the results that they're after as well. And really the three pillars to my, my coaching. Our health wealth and relationships and we can go into those areas as well because all three of those kind of key pillars can be broken down into sub pillars or sub buckets as well, right? Oh my God. Okay. So you don't know this about me, but, I worked in the mental health field and I did behavioral management, with clients, for the longest time. And. What you've been talking about is literally it's a it's a more step process. And we had a simpler version was working with adults with disabilities. But yeah, that's basically kind of what we did to with helping them with their maladaptive behaviors. And we would call it like a needs and services plan. And so I completely understand where you're coming from. And I know that that system works because something similar and a simpler version. Was something that we used with our clients. So yeah, so I love that because like, it's like, as you were talking, I could be, I was like, just remembering like, Oh my God, like I did that something along the lines of that for the last like nine years. And I'm like, completely blown away that like. How like related it was and we had never talked about this before. So I love that. Yeah, there you go okay. So my question to you is With the the buckets that you were talking about the what what was it wealth? health and relationships wealth health and Relationships. Okay, so we on here talk about parenthood business and relationships. So I kind of want to dive into the relationship bucket a little bit with you. So are you talking like, like romantic relationships or like friendship relationships or just, you know, society relationships? We can break it down into four categories. So the first one I, help my clients with, or I talk about is your intimate relationships. So that's your wife, your husband, your partner. The second, breakdown or second area is your friends. So the friendships that you have, the friendship relationships. The third one is your family. Yeah, I suppose you could put family before friends, but the third one is your family and the relationships you have with your family. And then the last one, I like to call it your professional network, but some of my clients call it their colleagues or their staff, but I call it your professional network. So if we hone in on all of those four areas of relationships, we can strengthen those relationships. We can create better ones. We can create more loving, harmonious relationships. And I always believe that it's like the same as the health. I don't believe you can, if you want to live the best possible life and you want to live the most fulfilling life and the most purposeful life, I don't believe you can have like one without the other. They all kind of intersect and integrate with each other. And I always feel like if one's I say out of whack or out of sync, then it directly has an impact on the other. So if I relate that back to the health kind of book or the health pillar. There's four parts to health. There's physical health, mental health, emotional health, and spiritual health. And I always feel like if one's out of sync or out of whack, it has a direct knock on effect or impact on the other one. It's the same with your relationships. If you've like got a really strong family relationship, but then your professional network is all over the place, it's going to have an impact on the other three. I'm a data scientist, so I'm really good at like, sort of like the other three buckets or the other three sub pillars, you could say. So they're the ones that I focus on with my clients. Those four different areas. And what I do that I know a lot of people don't do and where a lot of people go wrong is I'm like a real big stickler and a real big geek. You could say for data. I like to have metrics on it. And a lot of these kinds of things we're talking about emotional wellbeing, mental well being, they're often very different. Difficult to put a, a measurement on or to put data or attach a metric to it. But there are ways that you can do it. So when I'm talking to my clients or I'm helping my clients or I'm coaching my clients, and we're talking about relationships, specifically, I might just take a snapshot of those four buckets and say, okay, score each one out of 10, like your, your professional network. Is it a seven, eight, nine? Is it one, your family, your intimate relationships, your friends? Where do you score them on a scale of 10, one to 10? And then if their intimate relationship is like a nine, but their friends is like a two, then we know which one we need to work on. And then we'll dive deeper into that. So if someone's like an eight, nine or 10, I kind of leave it alone because they're at a good level anyway. But if they're like a two, three, four, anything below an eight. We know that it needs work on it. And that goes for all the different areas that I help my clients with. So that's a good thing for your listeners. They can just take different areas of their life and they can just honestly, honestly score themselves out of 10. And if there's a lower score, then you want to work on that area. But another caveat to this is that I'm very conscious when I'm helping a client that we only focus on one thing at a time because human beings cannot multitask and they're not good at taking on like loads of different things. And this is a big problem. Like a lot of my clients are entrepreneurs, business owners, they're high performing individuals within like a corporate business or corporate entity, and they are already spinning like Thank you. 50 million plates and a lot of your listeners are parents and then there's even more plates when you're at, when you're at so many plates and a lot of my clients, I'm not a parent myself, but I think, not all of my clients, but nearly all of my clients are parents. And I, I get it because from working with them, I know how difficult it is to run a business or, be a high powered. corporate, career driven individual and have a family at the same time. So when I'm coaching clients, I'm conscious of that, that we're only focusing on one thing. We pick that thing, we work on it and I wouldn't say master it, but we work on it until there's significant improvement. Then we move on to the next thing. And that's why. You can't put a fixed timeline on the coaching journey. Like my clients commit to a minimum of six months, but they might be with me for six months. They might be with me for 12 months, two years, three years. It depends on that individual's kind of journey and what they need to hone in on and focus on and improve. Nice. So, with that, then I'm assuming then you and your clients will look at the three buckets and then decide which direction to go in first. Is that kind of what you were? Exactly. Yeah. So one of the first things I spoke about the dream setting section and like one of the first section, what first parts of that dream setting section. Is we do some, it sounds really clinical, but we do something called a life audit. So we take all of those three big buckets and the sub buckets and we break them all down and we spend probably like the first or two sessions that we do together, coaching sessions together, doing a life audit. And then they do that as like their in air quotes action plan or homework outside of the coaching sessions as well to audit all of these areas of their life and audit them honestly. So. There's all the different sections and then there's a series of questions to ask themselves honestly and openly and then they just kind of like score themselves and audit their own life. And then we know what we need to work on and this is, I've took this from the health and fitness industry because before when I was in that arena. I kind of had two niches that I work within. One was, working with people with injuries because a lot of my training and my history in the fitness industry was with human movement and biomechanics and applied functional science. So a lot of my clients had injuries and it was injury prevention and injury rehabilitation. But then as you know, like most of my bread and butter was weight loss clients, people wanting to lose weight, get in shape, get fit, get healthy. And it baffled me how many clients used to come to me and say like, I dunno, my weight, I dunno, my resting heart rate, I don't know my circumference measurements, I dunno my body fat. I don't know what I'm eating in a day. I dunno how much water I'm drinking. I'm like, we've gotta start with all this stuff. You've got to have data and you've got to have measurements because if you don't, you don't know where you start in. You don't know. How to track as you go and you don't know where you need to get to. So yeah, that life audit might sound a bit clinical, but my clients find it super valuable because it just gives them a snapshot of where they're at right now. And then they know what areas they need to work on and we know together what we need to work on and then we can go in that direction. So I always think if you don't have the data, you don't have the measurements to start with, you just kind of. Shooting fish in a barrel or going in blind, so to speak. No, no, I totally understand, with us and how I was, in the mental health field. We call that a baseline. So we do the first 30 days with a baseline of, with the client and evaluation. But yeah, you can be like, oh, I do this this many times, but you're not really sure then, you know, how will you know that you get better is exactly what you were saying. So I love that. I, I love how much like there are parallels and everything that you're talking about with stuff that I'm like familiar with already. So, I like to give our listeners actionable steps. So with everything that you've been talking about, if somebody is like, really like, oh, my God. That sounds like really great. What's a good first step for them to take? And like, I'm assuming it's probably just to pick one of the buckets and like, be honest with themselves, right? Yeah, absolutely. I think the first, the first step I always believe is figuring out the why is, is I call it desire, like, because as human beings, we, we act on desires. Yeah, I believe that the starting point for everyone is always getting that understanding or that. I say crystal clear clarity on the why, or I like to call it desire because as human beings, we act upon our desires most of the time. So for example, if you want to have a pizza and you desire a pizza, you're going to go and eat a pizza because you've got the desire to want to eat pizza. And it's the same for your dream life or for living a fulfilled life, living a purposeful life. You've got to know like, what's the why, what's the desire, like what, why do you want to do whatever it is you have. As a dream or as a vision for your future self and get in understanding and get into the deep Meaningful why of, of what that is. And why it is is is always the starting point. And this isn't easy, and I think this is why a lot of people don't live their dreams or they don't feel fulfilled or they feel stuck, is because they don't, they don't have that kind of desire and discipline to like just go within themselves and, and strip away the, the layers of the onion to figure out what they truly want. Mm-hmm Because if you, if we walked out like. So wherever you are, if we walked out into the streets of Medellin and we just asked people like, what do you truly want? Like, what's your, what's your why? What's your dream? What do you really want from life? A lot of people would look at you like you're a crazy person. Like they wouldn't know how to answer that because they've never taken the time to do it. They've never taken the time to like sit down with a piece of paper or with a laptop and just ask those deep questions. What do I truly want from life? What, why do I want it? What do I want to get out of life? What is my dream life? What does it look like? What does it feel like? So I think that's always a starting point. And that's where I start with all of my clients and don't be superficial, like. If you want to spend all your days on the beach, sipping cocktails out of a coconut while like watching your kids play, then that's your, that's your dream. That's cool. And this is another big problem is we base our kind of dreams and goals and aspirations on societal expectations. We were so programmed by society and by our parents and our grandparents and our teachers and our bosses and our friends and our peers and all that kind of, all those kinds of areas. And. You should, not you should, you need to do your very best to kind of silence that noise and follow your own path and follow your own dreams and also learn who you truly are and like be your most authentic self because there's no one else like Whitney, there's no one else like Ali, we're unique, we're a gift from a higher power and we've been gifted a life and it's a, it's a blessing and a miracle that we're here. And we should treat our life like that, but not enough people do. So I think I've gone about it in a long winded way, but the answer to your question is starting with the why and the what, like, what is it that you want? Why do you want that? And go into as much detail, as much rich detail as possible. And then you can start to make the steps to. To make that dream a reality or, or, or get that why that you're after. thing to add on is when you do this, you might realize, and often people realize that their dream is a lot closer than they thought. It's like, it's like a light bulb or a mind explosion moment. It's like, actually what my dream is, it's not actually that far away. And this happened to me. It was like, I own a gym. Yes. I've got 400 and whatever members. Yes. There's 20 odd people doing private training. Yes. But it's not that difficult to wrap up my gym, book a plane ticket to wherever I want to go. I've got the knowledge and expertise of how to run a business. And I've got like people that I could potentially start my coaching business with. It's not that difficult to do. My dream isn't that far away. And that's why I was able to. Achieve my dream in less time than I kind of set for myself because it wasn't as far away as I thought and this often happens with my clients as well, what they, there's a disconnect between what they, what they think they want, but what they actually want in their heart and what they actually want in their heart isn't always that far away and why is, why is there this disconnect and why are they not living their dreams already? It all boils down to really to limiting beliefs. So, twofold answer, get clarity on like what your dream is and the what and the why, and then, identify and begin to eliminate your limiting beliefs because your limiting beliefs will cripple you. And if people don't know what limiting beliefs are, that you can again, put them into like categories, but like big ones of fear, self sabotage, perfectionism, procrastination, these kind of, these are all like, symptoms of limiting beliefs and limiting beliefs are the biggest thing that hold people back from living the life that they truly want and they truly desire. I love that. My friend, Erica, she just wrote a book and I'm reading it right now. So she calls the limiting beliefs, sticky floors. And I think that it's a, it's a fun way. To kind of introduce this topic to people because everyone knows what like a sticky floor is, you know what I'm talking about? And so that yeah, that's completely what you're saying. Like sometimes people let themselves, you know, whether it's what what's that word like, imposter syndrome? Like they don't think they like they earn it or they deserve it and i'm like no you got this and and so I I love that you talked about that too because I feel like The whole, like, limited beliefs is really what holds a lot of people back, especially, like, people who, I'm, like, talking to, like, my mom friends that I have, like, oh, like, I can't do that because I have to, like, do this, or, like, I'm too busy taking care of the kids, or, you know, that kind of thing, so, and I'm just, like, well, You know, you can have it, you know, you can't do everything all the time for everyone, like, you have to, you know, find a more, I hate using the word balance, I like flow, like a more work life flow, because I don't, like, you hate the word balance, or why do you not like the word balance? Just because, like, The way that I think of it is like, I'm never going to be 50 50 all the time between work and life. Some days, like, if it's my kid's birthday, it's 100 percent family life, you know, that day if it's like, the biggest Meeting with a sponsor, it's going to be work life most of that day. Right. So then I'm like people, I think people think of balance as being 50, 50. And then, so I'm just like, no, like some days it's going to ebb one way. And some days it's going to flow the other way. And so like, I like the word flow more, it feels more flexible. And that's why I personally like the, I personally like flow more than balance. It's not a scale. I like, I like both of them. I often say that balance is a heavily overused word, but it's severely underutilized. So people talk about balance all the time. They say balance, but they don't, they don't utilize it. They don't live in a balance and a harmonious or a flow or an equilibrium kind of state that there, that is a, that's another big, we spoke about limiting beliefs, but another big problem, especially for. Business owners, for parents, for entrepreneurs, for, for everyone really is that they live in these worlds of extremes. So it's like all one way or all the other, and there's no, there's no flow as you call it, or no balance as I call it, there's no middle ground. And I always feel like the middle, as, as like in Buddhism, they say the middle path is the best path. It's like the middle way, that balance. If you think about the yin and the yang symbol, being in the middle of that and having the balance of the both. Is the best place to be. And it's where the most magic happens. And it's where the most fulfillment comes from, but so many people live in these extreme worlds. And I find that a lot with my clients, a lot of my clients, when they start the journey with me, they're all or nothing people they're like all in on everything, or they're just like doing like the bare minimum, they're doing nothing. And I think you need to strike that flow as you call it, or that balance to, to, to feel more fulfilled and to feel more joy and happiness and freedom and harmony and all of those kinds of higher state. Emotions, you need to, you need to have that balance and you, you kind of nailed it and you alluded to it. It's like, that's another misconception. People think balance is 50, 50, but it could be 90, 10, it could be eight to 20. It could be 60 40 and that's the same with a relationship and you, you could be like operating at 20%. If your husband's operating at 80%, you're balanced and you're helping each other out. And, and so, yeah, you, it's not always 50 50, but getting yourself towards a more balanced way of life, I think is one of the keys to fulfillment and also to presence because so many people in the modern world, they're not present. They're like. And this is where all those, those problems come from, as you know, from working in mental health, like anxiety, worry, fear, depression, all of these kind of quote unquote negative states, they come from, from not being present and not being balanced because they're, they're either regretful about things that have happened in the past that they can't change, or they're too busy worrying or anxious about the future, creating a story that, as we know, probably will never even happen. Right. So you need to be aware that you're, you're going to have loads of thoughts. I think we have 50 to 60, 000 thoughts or something crazy. That's a ridiculous amount. That's insane. And it's crazy. But then I also read recently that they've kind of. There's been studies done to show that like a high percentage of them, I think it's like 60%, it's really high 60 or 65 percent and negative thoughts. So you're having like 50, 000 thoughts and like most of them are like negative thoughts because as human beings, we're wired up more towards a negativity bias. And the reason for that is, is because we're kind of wired up to survive, like our primary function in life is to survive and not die. So, You have to do your very best to, it starts off with controlling your thoughts, no, it starts off with being aware of them, like, yes, okay, I've got this thought going on in my head and I'm thinking this certain thing, but then beginning to control your thoughts, and then you can get to like, I wouldn't say it's the ultimate level, but you can get to a level where you begin to realize that you're not your thoughts. Your thoughts are just a thing and you aren't actually there. That's not who Ali is. That's not who Whitney is. That's not who your listeners are. You're not your thoughts, but so many people, they get attached onto their thoughts and they let their thinking rule their life. And that's why a lot of the time with my clients, I say like, go back to your heart. Like I try and bring them into their heart because. The heart is way more powerful. And this isn't like airy fairy spirituality stuff. This is science as well. Your heart is way more powerful than your brain, like your heart waves. I think they can go like, uh, 10 to 15 feet and your brain waves only go like five to eight feet or something like that. I don't, people need to fact check me on that. Don't take what I say, but it's around those kinds of kind of measurements. So like your heart is, is like powerful and we kind of ignore our heart and we, we don't trust it. And I'm not saying forget your mind and not use your mind because your mind is super powerful and you should use it and you should work on cultivating a growth mindset, but also like don't let those negative thoughts consume you because the negative thoughts and those limiting beliefs and that self doubt and kind of that monkey mind that are going to derail you from, from again, living a purposeful, fulfilling, fulfilling life. Life and living your dreams. Awesome. Yeah, 100%. Like, you basically said it all. Like, I, I love this conversation that we're having because I know That one, everything that you're saying in the, in the like processes, are so similar to something I've used that I've seen results on that side. So I know that your clients must be loving you, you know? And also like, I feel like you could totally write a book about this too, you know? Yeah, well, it's on the agenda amongst other things. I'd love to, I used to have a podcast when I had my gym. And I'd love to like, get back to podcasting again and, and creating a YouTube and writing a book. So they're, they're in the pipeline. But as I said earlier, like focusing on one or one, maybe 1. 5 things at a time and not do too much. Not every day. Absolutely. It could all, it could go into a book. And I also, we've not really touched much on my story, but I often think like. My story could probably make a good book as well, especially like the gym years, because my wife and I running that business went through so many kind of ups and downs and challenges and setbacks. And you could say like traumatic moments, but I always say, and we always say me and my wife, we wouldn't have changed those five and a half years for the world because they taught us so much. about business and people, but more importantly, they taught us so much about ourselves and it kind of galvanized mine and Sarah's relationship and made us, super resilient. We often say, like, you'll struggle to meet two people that are more resilient than us. And I think a lot of that resilience was put to the test last year as well because, in July last year we were caught up in Hurricane Beryl, on the island of Karaku, yeah, so Karaku is an island that belongs to Grenada, and we were there at the time in July, and it was a record breaking Category 4 hurricane, and the house that we were in, the roof was ripped off, and we were like, and we were In the bathroom, pressed against the door with like stuff flying everywhere. And it was just like, it was catastrophic and it was really traumatizing. And it was like a, it was like such a harrowing kind of moment for both of our lives, but after, and like, once we kind of got through the aftermath of it, we both said like all the stuff we've been through, but also all the work that we've done on ourselves had almost prepared us for that moment because we had the faith that we were going to survive and everything was going to be all right. We kept positive, even though it was like. The scariest thing I've ever been through or we've ever been through. And then we came out of the other side and we live to tell the tale and it's made us stronger again. So I think a lot of people, this is another kind of thing to add in. A lot of people, they're scared to like take risk or scared to go after their dreams or scared to make changes because they're worried of like the, what if, or like, what if it doesn't work out? What if it fails? What if I succeed? Like there's so many kind of different stories and narratives that they play over in their head. But you always. You always learn from these kind of making changes and stepping out of your comfort zone. And then when the bad stuff happens to you, your challenges, and when you're at rock bottom or close to rock bottom, that to me is like when the most opportunities are for growth. And when you experience something like. Your business failing or getting caught up in a hurricane or you end in a long term relationship or you start in a new business Or someone close to you passes away This is when you have the most opportunity to take the lessons and grow and I truly believe that that's We, I often speak about purpose, but I truly believe that that's what people's purposes are when, from the moment they're born into this world to the moment they live, leave. I truly believe that purpose is to grow every single day and learn about themselves so that they can, again, without sounding airy fairy, exit the world, a better version or not a version that I don't like that word, a better human being than when they came in. I love that. That's what I truly believe. Yeah, I mean, I was, I was literally about to ask you what your most chaotic moment is and what you learned from it, but I think, like, surviving a hurricane is probably the most chaotic story we've heard so far on the podcast. Yeah, that's up there. That and, when we started the business, I, had a, the business partner that I started the gym with turned out to be a con man. He was a legitimate con man. Like, you know, you see these documentaries on Netflix, like where these women are getting swindled by con men and stuff. And I can, and people often say like, how could they fall for that? How can they get done by that? I got done by it. Me and my wife got done by it. Like a legitimate con man. We started the business together and he, before the business had even really got started, he almost ran it into the ground financially. He made so many bad decisions and ultimately in the first year, this was 2017, the first year of the business, we had to seek legal action to kind of like get him out of the business. And by the end of 2017, we we'd managed to like Part ways with him and then me and my wife for the, for 2018, 19, 2021, and then, nine months of 2022, we, we ran the business together and then the back end of 2018, we took on a, like a silent investor business partner. So, yeah, so the hurricane and having a con man as a business partner, probably like the two most chaotic things in the last, I'd say the last decade of my life. Oh my god, you are definitely winning the like the most chaotic moment stories. That's insane. I mean, I'm glad that you're no longer in that situation, but that's yeah, wow, that's insane. Yeah, it is crazy. But also, I look at these, I think everyone has these moments that you can label them or call them whatever you want. Like one of Once, one person whose podcast I went on a couple of times before I left the UK, he calls them sledgehammer moments and some people call them domino moments or, or like, you can call them life changing moments or character development, development moments, whatever you want to label them. But if you look at your life and you take a snapshot of your life, we all have them. I'm going to be 38 this year. So if I look back at the 38 years of my life, I'll probably have like, Between five and eight, like really critical sledgehammer moments or domino moments where I can say, okay, that was a huge moment in my life. Some good, some bad, or some amazing, some challenging. But they're kind of like the significant moments in my life and we can all have these, but it's how we like put them into context and how we use them to grow and be a better human being. And I've always, especially for the last 10 years, because my personal growth journey really properly started in 2015 and that's a whole nother story on its own, but I went to Sedona, probably not far from you, Sedona in Arizona. Yeah. I went to Sedona. And, I had like a life changing experience in Sedona. I guess you could only label it as a spiritual awakening. And from that day on, like my personal growth journey just kind of accelerated and my whole life, I would say just like went on an upwards trajectory. And we all have these moments and it's how we, how we use them to our, to our benefit and use them to grow and become better. So I never see these for a lot of people, if you said hurricane to them or the business almost failing or having a con man as a business partner. These kinds of things, they'd be like, Oh my God, that's the worst thing that could happen. But I look back at them and I'm grateful for them. I'm grateful that they happened because they've made me a better Ali, they've made me a better human being. And this is how we should look at any kind of setbacks, challenges, traumatic moments in our life. We, we often categorize them or, or label them as, as like really negative moments, but don't be grateful for them and take the lessons from them. And the past. I would say the past is always your teacher or your guide. It should never be your master. Your past is not your master. It's your teacher or your guide. Let it guide you and teach you. Be present and then still have eyes on the, on the future. So I'm all for being present, but I still have my own vision. I still dream. I still have the same kind of thing with my clients. I help them to visualize, I help them to create a three, five, seven, 10 year vision for the future. And I have the same for myself, but I don't like, I don't get fixated on the vision or the end goal. And I don't get fixated on the quote unquote bad stuff that's happened to me in the past. I'd try and remain present while having that vision and letting my past. Be my, be my guide and be my teacher. Awesome. Okay. So before we start wrapping up, is there any kind of like last minute messages you want to send out to our listeners if they're listening to this and all this is resonating with them? Yeah, I think we can, it would be a boring podcast if we just left it as, and just said this one thing, but we can categorize pretty much everything that I've said today into one thing. And it ultimately boils down to working on yourself first. taking care of yourself first. And this is again, a big problem. And it's a problem that I had for 27, 28 years of my life is that I'd often put other people before myself. And it became a detriment to my own self. It became a detriment to my own physical, mental, emotional, spiritual well being. And I think one of the biggest takeaways that I got from that kind of awakening that I had in Sedona was that I needed to take care of myself and put myself first because this is going to be the best way to grow. And since 2016, I've said the same affirmation to myself every single day. And it's that before I can, so the actual full affirmation is. Right now, I'm so happy and grateful that before I can support others, I must learn how to nurture myself. Right now, I'm so happy and grateful that before I can support others, I must learn how to nurture myself. So, that's all about putting myself first and looking after myself first, because if you do that as an individual, as a parent, as a business owner, as an employee, as whatever, if you do that, then you are going to be able to help and serve others as the best. best you as the truest you as the most authentic you and you're going to be able to navigate. Life with a lot more grace and ease. So ultimately my kind of final parting message is to put yourself first and look after yourself first, and then you can live the best life possible. And when I say that to people, I often get the rebuttal that all that's selfish, but it's not, it's selfless putting yourself first is the most selfless thing you can ever do in your life. I love that. I have like a little funny things in my head when you were saying that, like one, I loved everything that you're saying, but in the back of my head, like my mom joke side is like, Oh, that's why they say, put your air mask on you before your children and airplanes, you know? Exactly. Exactly. That's it. That's that you've nailed it. Yeah. And it's like, that's exactly it. You put your mask on first and you do it to someone else because if you're dead. Or if you're not operating at your best level, how the hell can you expect to serve and help people? And that, that goes for everyone that goes for you, your husband, your partner, your wife, whatever it goes for your kids. Awesome. Okay. So last question is how can our listeners connect with you? Yeah, easy. The best way to find me on all social media platforms is Ali West coach. And I think on Tik TOK, it might be coach Ali West. So if you search Ali West coach on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and then if you search coach Ali West on Tik TOK, you'll find me. Every single day to not so much to Facebook, but to Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn. I post every single day on there and people can also subscribe to my newsletter people can just send me a direct message on any of those platforms and I'll send them the link to join my newsletter. And I send out three. Emails per week. And they're just like packed full of kind of tips, hacks, information, what's going on in my life, how you can live a more purposeful and fulfilling life and all that kind of stuff that we've spoken about today. So, yeah, but if it's just for connecting Ali West coach on all platforms. Awesome. Yeah, I will put all the links down in the show notes, for all your social medias so yeah, we'll add that all in. Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on and having this conversation. Oh, you're welcome. You're welcome. I appreciate it. That's a wrap on another episode of Caffeinated Chaos. I hope you're leaving with a little more clarity, a lot more inspiration, and maybe even an extra shot of motivation. If you loved today's episode, don't forget to follow us, leave a review, and share it with a friend who could use just a little chaos and caffeine in their life. Until next time, keep embracing the mess, chase your dreams, and make magic happen. One caffeinated, chaotic moment at a time. I will see you all soon. Bye now.

People on this episode

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Whitney Mihalko - Aguon

Host
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Ali West

Guest

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